JURY OF THE 2024 ERIC ERICSON AWARD
Justin Doyle
Justin Doyle. Photo: Matthias Heyde.
Justin Doyle, Chairman of the Jury at EEA, is Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the RIAS Kammerchor, in demand as a conductor of opera, and works regularly with orchestras. He is Guest Professor in Choral Conducting at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin and International Visitor at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He was formerly Musical Director of ensembles such as the University of Manchester Chorus and Essex Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Ryedale and Swaledale Festivals.
As a guest conductor, he has had engagements with the Hallé Orchestra, Finnish Baroque Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and Johannesburg Philharmonic among others. He has received glowing reviews for his opera interpretations, including Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Britten’s Albert Herring and Offenbach’s Fantasio, the latter at Garsington Opera in 2019. With RIAS Kammerchor, he has recorded an album with choral works Benjamin Britten, and the album Heritage with music by Jewish German composers, featuring Cantor Azi Schwartz.
He has travelled extensively in Africa, mostly in Kenya and Ethiopia, arranging indigenous music for choir. In his youth, he sang in the Westminster Cathedral Choir, and later entered King’s College, Cambridge as a choral scholar.
Krista Audere
Krista Audere. Photo: Karīna Kaminska.
Krista Audere is a conductor of Latvian origin, now based in the Netherlands. She is currently the conductor of the VU-Kamerkoor, Kamerkoor Venus, and is regularly engaged as a guest conductor of the Dutch Chamber Choir, the Dutch Radio Choir and Cappella Amsterdam.
Since becoming the winner of the Eric Ericson award 2021 she continues her work with professional choirs all across Europe.
In the 2023/24 season she has engagements with the State Choir Latvia, the Hungarian Radio Choir, the Bavarian Radio Choir, the Danish National Vocal Ensemble, the WDR Rundfunkchor Köln, the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart and the BBC Singers.
Krista Audere (1989) graduated from Riga Dom choir school where she gained qualifications as a choir master and choral singer. She then attained the Bachelor’s degree in choral conducting at Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music while enriching her musical experience at the University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart. In 2016 Krista obtained the Masters diploma and graduated cum laude at the Amsterdam University of the Arts. As a singer she has collaborated with the Latvian Radio Choir and Cappella Amsterdam
Martina Batič
Martina Batič . Photo: Janez Kotar.
Martina Batič is one of the leading choir directors of her generation. As the winner of the renowned Eric Ericson Competition 2006, she is celebrated for her particular versatility in conducting a broad choral repertoire from chamber music to symphony.
Martina Batič has been Principal Conductor of the Chœur de Radio France from 2018-2022. Before that, she held the position of Artistic Director of the Slovenian Philharmonic Choir. From 2004-2009, Martina Batič was Artistic Director of the Choir of the Slovenian National Opera in Ljubljana. In season 2023/2024 she is taking the Chief conductor position of Danish Vocal Ensemble in Copenhagen, Denmark
The Slovenian is a sought-after guest conductor and has been on podium of the RIAS Chamber Choir, MDR Rundfunkchor, SWR Vokalensemble, Flemish Radio Choir, as well as the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, Swedish Radio Choir, Danish National Vocal Ensemble, The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Suomen Laulu Choir & Finnish Baroque Orchestra, Nederlands Kamerkoor, Netherlands Radio Choir, Flemish Radio Choir, Gulbenkian Choir and others.
Future highlights include her return visits to Nederlands Kamerkoor, Netherlands Radio Choir, Gulbenkian Orchestra & Choir, French Radio Choir and engagements with SWR Vokalensemble,
Coro Casa da Musica Porto, Rundfunkchor Berlin, Finnish Chamber Choir, Bachchor Salzburg.
Martina Batič has conducted A cappella concerts at festivals such as Baltic Sea Stockholm, Ultima Oslo, Choregies d’Orange, Montpellier and Présences Paris. In 2018 she conducted the Swedish Radio Choir & Eric Ericson Chamber Choir in a gala concert on the occasion of Eric Ericson’s 100th birthday.
Martina Batič obtained her Bachelor of Music from the Music Academy of the University of Ljubljana in 2002. She continued her studies at the University of Music and Theater in Munich in the class of Prof. Michael Gläser, where she completed her master’s degree in choral conducting with distinction in 2004. She attended master classes across Europe and worked with renowned choral conductors such as Eric Ericson.
In 2019 Martina Batič received the Slovenian national prize “Prešeren Fund Awards” for her artistic achievements in the field of choral conducting.
Sofia Niklasson
Sofia Niklasson. Photo: Jennifer Drotz Ruhn.
Sofia Niklasson started singing with the Swedish Radio Choir in 2003 and since 2010 is a regular member and part of the Radio Choir’s soprano voice. In addition to her position in the Radio Choir, she is active as a soloist, above all in early and contemporary music.
She is often involved as a soprano soloist in the most common church musical works, such as Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s oratorios and Mozart’s Requiem, but has also participated in several world premieres, including Sven-David Sandström’s Matthew Passion in the Berlin Philharmonic.
She has sung with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gävle and Helsingborg symphony orchestras, Gothenburg Baroque, Drottningholm’s baroque ensemble and other orchestras. Sofia is a dedicated ensemble singer and likes to explore a cappella repertoire from all eras in smaller vocal ensembles, such as Ecstatic Ensemble and Vokalharmonin, groups with which she regularly performs.
Kaspars Putniņš
Kaspars Putniņš. Photo: Mattias Ahlm/Sveriges Radio.
Kaspars Putniņš is the chief conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir from the 2020–2021 season. He is also artistic director and chief conductor of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and has been a permanent conductor of the Latvian Radio Choir since 1994. As a guest conductor, he has collaborated with the likes of RIAS Chamber Choir, NDR Chor (North German Radio Choir) in Hamburg, the Danish National Vocal Ensemble, the BBC singers, Tokyo Cantat, and the Netherlands Radio Choir.
Putniņš is as well-versed in the interpretation of Renaissance polyphonic choral works as in the powerful emotional outpourings of works of the Romantic period. But above all he is a passionate promoter of outstanding contemporary choral music. Through close collaborations with a string of Nordic and Baltic composers, he has contributed to setting a high standard for performances and recordings of newly composed choral works.
He has conducted works by composers such as Maija Einfelde, Mārtiņš Viļums, Toivo Tulev, Lasse Thoresen and Gavin Bryars, and has been the driving force behind a variety of theatrical projects where his choristers have collaborated with actors and visual artists. He has made acclaimed recordings of works by for example Schnittke and Pärt with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir on a CD that has received both a Gramophone Award and Diapason d’Or.
Erik Westberg
Erik Westberg. Photo: Pär Bäckström.
Erik Westberg is a multi-award-winning choir conductor and, since 2003, Professor in Choir Conducting and Choral Singing at the Department of Arts, Communication and Education at Luleå University of Technology. In 1993, he founded the Erik Westberg Vocal Ensemble, an ensemble that has commissioned and premièred some fifty works by Swedish and international composers, completed over forty performance tours, and made a large number of recordings.
He has also been the choirmaster of the Oslo Philharmonic Choir and the KFUM Choir in Stockholm, and has been engaged as guest conductor for the Swedish Radio Choir, Pro Coro Canada, Coro Nacional de España and Coro Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. He was the founder of the project “Choral Singing for Peace and Justice” which engaged 8,000 choristers in 56 countries, and founder of the Barents International Centre for Choral Music, which engaged professional singers from Sweden, Finland, Norway and Russia.
He has received multiple awards. These include the Royal Swedish Academy of Music’s conducting award in 1992 as first conductor, and was honoured in 2006 with His Majesty the King of Sweden’s Medal of the Eighth Size with ribbon of the Order of the Seraphim. He studied choir conducting under Professor Eric Ericson at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.
Friederike Woebcken
Friederike Woebcken. Photo: Christina Kuhaupt.
Friederike Woebcken studied music education, choral conducting and English in Freiburg (Germany) and Glasgow (Great Britain) and participated in an advanced course in choir direction held by Eric Ericson in Stockholm (Sweden).
She was named professor for choir direction at the University of the Arts Bremen in 1998, where she took the Chamber Choir on tours to many countries and participated in numerous competitions and festivals. In 2020 she retired from the University of Arts Bremen.
Friederike is music director of Madrigalchor Kiel since 1990. With this fine ensemble she tours regularly in Germany and abroad. With various CD recordings and regular conducting masterclasses in Nordkolleg Rendsburg she has promoted the excellent reputation of this ensemble.
From 1996 to 2000, she and Eric Ericson held master classes for choral conducting in Nordkolleg Rendsburg that resulted in well received concerts in Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. Friederike’s ideal and vision of a perfect choral sound as well as her love of Northern European repertoire was shaped by her studies in Stockholm and her long collaboration with Eric Ericson.
Friederike Woebcken has international contacts through concerts, seminars and symposiums and is regularly invited as adjudicator in choir competitions. In the Erasmus programme she has been teaching as lecturer in various universities such as Leipzig, Vienna, Gothenburg, Piteå and Lisbon. Since 2017, she is a member on the Artistic Board of the international German-Scandinavian Music Week in Scheersberg near the German-Danish border.
In 2002, she was presented with the Cultural Award of the city of Kiel. In 2023, she and Madrigalchor Kiel are presented with the Brahms Award by the Brahms Society Schleswig-Holstein.
